[calintexas]

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This link is to a YouTube video produced by industry trade publication Wards Auto from the CES. Tanja Otte, a Communication Manager for BMW's Digital Services talks about new and future BMW digital features.

https://youtu.be/1bALfaGK414

[MrPorter]

Thanks for posting.

As someone who geeks out over technology and will pay for all sorts of stuff I don't really need...I don't even want any of that.

I want my phone to do all of that, and I want my car to work seamlessly with my phone where appropriate.

The last thing we need is another clunky digital assistant.

[shoptb]

I agree. I think we're just seeing a ton of duplication in the industry now. I don't want 10 digital assistants to deal with; learn how to use. Instead, I think BMW should spend more time working with the industry digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc) instead of designing yet another one. My $.02.

[calintexas]

Originally Posted by shoptb

I agree. I think we're just seeing a ton of duplication in the industry now. I don't want 10 digital assistants to deal with; learn how to use. Instead, I think BMW should spend more time working with the industry digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc) instead of designing yet another one. My $.02.

I think some vehicle manufacturers haven't figured out yet that electronics development lead times are much shorter than vehicle development lead times. Those features that are in phones today that they want to sell to customers as services aren't the same set of services that people will want by the time the vehicles they are developing come out, and even those that are still in demand will be much simpler to use than they are now. Consumer demand will push the vehicle manufacturers in the direction you are wanting, but it will take the more stubborn/arrogant ones a while to get there.

[jjrandorin]

They (car mfr's especially luxury german car manufacturers), do NOT want to be a "dumb pipe" for your phone.

Everyone is trying to "own the next thing". Thats why there is alexa, google assistant, Siri, etc. Thats why the german car manufacturers went away from google, and bought their own mapping company (here).

What SHOULD happen is, we should just doc our phones into the car, it should appear on the screen in some fashion (carplay, android auto, something similar) and away we go.

We dont even need navigation built into most cars now... and BMW et. al certainly did not want to give up charging 2k+ for navigation in the car.

There is no reason a digital assistant cant run from the phone (one that already has its ecosystem built out). BMW will keep trying though.

[MechX3M40i]

Originally Posted by jjrandorin

They (car mfr's especially luxury german car manufacturers), do NOT want to be a "dumb pipe" for your phone.

Everyone is trying to "own the next thing". Thats why there is alexa, google assistant, Siri, etc. Thats why the german car manufacturers went away from google, and bought their own mapping company (here).

What SHOULD happen is, we should just doc our phones into the car, it should appear on the screen in some fashion (carplay, android auto, something similar) and away we go.

We dont even need navigation built into most cars now... and BMW et. al certainly did not want to give up charging 2k+ for navigation in the car.

There is no reason a digital assistant cant run from the phone (one that already has its ecosystem built out). BMW will keep trying though.

LOL about the expensive Navigation in new cars - can't tell you how many times I had to pay for this option that I don't use (the free Waze App is way better than 98% of the navigation systems out there), in order to get certain other options which I really want! An obvious money grab endeavor :

[supersebbo]

The only thing that keeps me using the BMW Nav is the heads-up display turn prompts, they really are very good.